If last week was about doing science, this week was about teaching other people what I’ve learnt. I’ve got involved with Science Theatre, an organisation of undergraduates who go out to local schools and put on science shows for them.
My first show was on Tuesday, at Lewton elementary school in Lansing. (Elementary school is roughly the same as primary school in the UK). After an hour and a half of training, we all piled into a truck and drove over there, with in-journey entertainment with people complementing/imitating/making fun of my accent. I’m now considering practicing some different accents and trying a new one every week to see if people notice…
Science theatre is great, as not only to we get to educate people in was that would normally be unfeasible in school, but we also get to play with stuff. In my case possibly my favourite stuff, liquid nitrogen. As I pointed out last week, this stuff is really cold. How cold? Ah America, what a difficult question.
One of the main differences with here and home is units. Despite most of the world converting to metric and SI units, America still gamely clings on to old units. Now, having played too much warhammer for my own good, I can judge feet and inches by eye better than most Americans, but weighing things in pounds? How may atmospheres in a Torr? And when you say it’s going to be ninety degrees outside next week, I’m worried that I will literally melt. Yep, after years of using the sensible Celsius and better Kelvin scales I’m having to learn to talk about temperature in Fahrenheit. (Fortunately actual physics is still done in Kelvin.) So how cold is liquid nitrogen? To Wikipedia! -346° Fahrenheit apparently. Oops. Hopefully those children won’t remember the value I gave…
I’ve been training to be a cub scout leader for some time now, so I should have expected what happened next. First I did the obligatory routine of putting a piece of fruit into the nitrogen, which turns the water in the apple into ice. As you may have learnt from, you know, being alive, ice is rather brittle, so hitting the now frozen apple with a hammer caused it to smash everywhere.
I then asked how many of them wanted me to put my hand in it. Despite having just been pelted with bits of very dead apple, every hand went up. They all wanted to see me lose a hand. Children are horrible sometimes.
Fortunately…it’s all part of the act. Putting your hand in nitrogen briefly is actually perfectly safe- because of the huge difference in temperature the nitrogen vaporises when it touches your skin, forming a gas layer that the liquid rolls off. We demonstrated this by pouring the stuff over my hand with a ladle. Suffice to say, the children were amazed.
Other demonstrations included making fire dance with music, the bed of nails and exploding (ex) water bottles. All of which use really simple science that, hopefully, the children will now have some idea about.
That’s the serous side behind all this messing around- if we teach people that science is fun, useful and understandable at a young age then hopefully they will continue to want to learn it later on in life. Science has unfortunately gained a reputation of being a really hard, esoteric subject that only a few people can be good at. Probably the most common reaction I get when I tell people what I study is “I couldn’t do that.” Rubbish.
I cannot play a musical instrument. Not one. But I don’t think I never could, that somehow that area is denied to me. It would just take loads of practice and commitment. Loads of people do play instruments and very few of them were brilliant at the start. They got there through hard work and practice. Somehow science has come to be seen as an area where you’re either good at it or you aren’t, and no amount of work will change that. Hopefully science theatre and shows like it will help to change that perception, and more people will learn that they really can do science.
And it’s not just children. Last night I volunteered to help at the campus observatory’s open night, where members of the public could come and have a look through our telescopes (not a euphemism. Stop laughing) Despite it being late at night and cold, loads of people were there, all fascinated by what they were seeing and asking loads of questions, which we tried to answer, with mixed success. I’ve never had to answer “how do objects become tidally locked?” at half past ten at night before! (If you want to know comment, I think I’ve gone off topic enough this post. It’s really interesting though.) I really enjoy practical astronomy, it’s great seeming something like Jupiter in detail for real, where before you’ve only seen it in pictures. Everyone can see Jupiter at the moment, just look for the brightest thing in the sky at night (but not the moon).
It’s been a week of talking to other people about stuff I do- on Wednesday I was at the study abroad fair trying to get people to do what I do (except the other way round), which lead to lots of talking about how good Lancaster’s physics department is, as well as more of my terrible but improving drawings of Britain to teach the Americans geography. The best moment was when two people came up, read the signs, then exclaimed “what, so you actually go to university there! No way!” and walked off in disgust. Well yes, I thought. We indicated that by the clever use of the word “study” in “study abroad.” Otherwise we’d have called it “a holiday”.
Or as they call it here, Vacation Fahrenheit Inches. I think…
Go and learn some science. Because it’s interesting, it’s fun and because you can.
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